Damarys Ocaña Perez

Damarys Ocaña Perez is Director of Editorial Content at Latina Media Ventures. She leads its magazine, Latina, the pre-eminent beauty, fashion, culture and lifestyle magazine for acculturated U.S. Hispanic women and is responsible for maintaining Latina’s voice, vision and mission across all LMV platforms.

Ocaña Perez first joined Latina as associate editor in 2004 and served in various positions, including Entertainment Editor and Writer-at-Large, before launching a freelance career in 2008. She rejoined Latina as Executive Editor in 2012 and was named Director of Editorial Content in March 2013.

She began her career as a reporter for the Miami Herald, and has written on everything from government and crime, to contemporary art and commentary for print and online publications including People,The Guardian and the New York Daily News.

Born in Havana and raised in Miami, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

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Immigrant children are the country’s fastest-growing group but their future and their ability to assimilate is in jeopardy unless something is done to improve their educational achievement, according to a new policy brief released by the Brookings Institute.

In its report, the independent think tank specifically calls the educational lag of Latino kids—who make up a quarter of school-age children in the U.S. and 5 million of whom have at least one undocumented parent—one of the biggest domestic problems facing the country.

Fidel Castro, who first stepped out of the limelight (sort of) after becoming seriously ill in 2006, then handed over power to his brother Raul Castro in 2008, has made it official. He resigned his role as secretary of Cuba’s Communist Party on Tuesday.

With cuts to health care programs and education grants and changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food program, the federal 2012 budget proposed by House Republicans would be devastating for Latino families, said officials at the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda on Thursday.

Get involved. That was President Obama’s message to parents in his first town hall on Latino education Monday. During the town hall, held at Bell Multicultural High School in Washington DC, he also stressed the importance of investing in early education programs, improving teacher quality and passing the DREAM Act allowing children of undocumented parents to stay in the country if they enroll in college or military service.

“No matter where you’re from, you’re the single biggest factor in your child’s success,” he said.

Nearly a quarter of the nation’s kids are Latino, according to census figures released Thursday. Latino kids number just over 17 million, or 23 percent of the 17-and-under U.S. population—a 39 percent increase since 2000.

With birth rates among whites and blacks down, the country’s future is looking increasingly brown. In at least one area—education—that poses a big challenge, given that half of Latino kids don’t graduate high school.

The 2010 Census’ final population count is in, showing that we now number 50.5 million or 16 percent of the U.S. population, up 43 percent from 2000. Those numbers account for more than half of the growth of the country’s population in a decade that saw an aging white population, according to the findings, part of the Census bureau’s first set of national –level findings released Thursday. Of the 27.3 million added to the U.S. population in the last decade, 15.2 million were Hispanic. Take a look around: 1 in 6 Americans is now a Latino.

Fresh off Battle: Los Angeles’ opening-weekend win last Friday, Michael Peña hits the big screen again this week with the drama/thriller The Lincoln Lawyer, co-starring Matthew McConaughey as a bottom-feeding criminal defense attorney who works out of his car and lands the seemingly dream client—a rich bad boy who is accused of rape and attempted murder. Enter the Mexican American actor as Jesus, the all-too-convenient suspect.

Puerto Ricans should be the only ones who have a say in whether the island remains a part of the United States or becomes independent and the President and Congress should act on the results quickly, says a new report by the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico released today.

The 114-page report is the product of two years work by the Task Force that included public meetings in the island nation. It lays out scores of recommendations on some of the island’s biggest challenges: economic development, healthcare and the future of Vieques.

Cheech Marin and Ana Ortiz have paired up for a new Fox family comedy pilot about a frazzled couple (Ugly Betty’s Ortiz and newcomer Cliff Chamberlain), their three kids and the wife’s pill-popping dad (Marin).

Based on a succesful British comedy, the show, titled Outnumbered is set to debut in the fall. We’ll be watching, hoping Ortiz and Marin’s deep comedy and TV skills can turn this sitcom into a comedy classic.

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